JANESVILLE — With unemployment numbers rising, many people are looking for ways to supplement their income.
And when people are vulnerable, they might be taken advantage of through work-at-home job schemes, said Glen Loyd, public information officer with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
Loyd called The Janesville Gazette on Wednesday after hearing an advertisement for a work-at-home seminar at a Janesville hotel.
"It talks about making money at home with medical transcription,” he said.
"In the past, we've gotten complaints from people who have invested large sums of money in these work-at-home medical billing and things like that, which sounds like a job is waiting for you. But as it turns out there isn't any billing work at home," Loyd said.
Loyd offered this warning: "If they ask for money, then it isn't work at home. It's give them money."
Loyd said the red flag should start waving if somebody makes it sound as if they have a job waiting, if they ask for money and especially if the seminar is at a hotel.
"We've had complaints where advertising drew people to hotels offering jobs, but at the hotel what they were sold weren't jobs. It turns out people who complained to us couldn't start these businesses and lost money," he said.
Work-at-home jobs are advertised all the time, Loyd said, but "we don't know of any except those by local employers. Just about all other work-at-home advertising is questionable."
"We say don't be interested if they want money from you. You want somebody to pay you, not you pay them. You want to be careful about giving money to people who come in from out of town and rent a hotel room because they're not going to be there long," he said.
TO LEARN MORE
To protect yourself, ask about a business or to file a complaint, contact the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection by calling 1-800-422-7128, going online to www.datcp.state.wi.us or sending an e-mail to datcphotline@datcp.state.wi.us.